Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Ultimate Sith Edition)
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Ultimate Sith Edition is a LucasArts action-adventure video game and expansion to the original Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. It was initially developed for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360 consoles and on the iOS, second-generation N-Gage, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, and Java-equipped mobile phone handhelds. The game was released in North America on November 01, 2009, in Australia and Southeast Asia on November 17, and in Europe on December 19. The game re-introduces an Infinities version of "Starkiller", Darth Vader's former apprentice, now an assassin in the employ of the Emperor, tasked with hunting down rebels and traitorous Imperials alike. The storyline was a continuation of the non-canonical ending to the original game. Reviews offered mixed response, praising Ultimate Sith Edition for its compelling story, impressive art and soundtrack, but also citing frustrating gameplay which had not been entirely fixed since the release of the first game and the short campaign. The game included the original Force Unleashed content and some criticisms included the apparent attempt to convince fans to buy the first game a second time. Despite this, the game was a bestseller in the United States and Australia, with over one million copies sold its debut month. As of 2010 February the game has sold over four million copies. Gameplay The Force Unleashed is a third-person action game in which the player's character's weapons are the Force and a lightsaber. Developers treated the main character's lightsaber like another Force power, and wanted to ensure "something visceral and cool" happened with each button-push. The game has a combo system for stringing lightsaber attacks and for combining lightsaber attacks with Force powers. Experience points earned by killing enemies and finding artifacts can be used to increase Starkiller's powers and traits. The gameplay is intended to be easy to learn; the development team included "horrible" gamers to help ensure the game's accessibility. Players can casually run and gun through the game, but the game rewards those who take a stealthy, more tactical approach. The game includes enemies that are easy to overcome; game difficulty arises from presenting these enemies in large numbers that can wear down the player's character. Additionally, enemies learn from the player's character's attacks; using the same attack on different characters can sometimes lead to the player's character doing less damage. The enemies, which number over 50, have various strengths and weaknesses; developers faced the difficulty of effectively placing them throughout the game's varied environments. Ultimate Sith Infinities Plot Set shortly after the events of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Starkiller has been molded into a Sith Assassin by The Emperor. His first assignment is to investigate reports of a traitor within the Imperial High Command, leading him to Admiral Zaarin, who is intent on overthrowing the Emperor. Starkiller defeats him and is then sent to intercept the Tantive IV, which carries the stolen Death Star plans, transmitted to Princess Leia Organa and the Rebellion. Starkiller leads the assault force and captures both Leia and Captain Antilles, executing the latter. He learns that two droids have been sent to the surface of the nearby planet Tatooine and sets off to retrieve them. He visits Jabba the Hutt for information, but instead is forced to fight his way out of Jabba's palace, defeating Jabba's numerous guards, his pet Rancor and killing famed bounty hunter Boba Fett in the process. Starkiller then tracks the droids to Mos Eisley where he engages in a duel with Obi-Wan Kenobi, killing the elder Jedi. The Millennium Falcon escapes, but Starkiller is able to capture it later, along with the crew composed of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Chewbacca. The droids are recovered and the plans taken back into custody. '' in the second half of the Tatooine mission.]] Onboard the Death Star, Starkiller and Grand Moff Tarkin debate on what to do with the prisoners and whether to destroy Alderaan as an example to other worlds. Meanwhile Luke and the others escape their cell, rescuing Leia in the process. She learns that her father survived the assault by Starkiller years earlier, and his sickly form pleads with his daughter (and Luke) to leave him behind and seek out a Jedi named Yoda, living in the Dagobah system. Starkiller pursues the Millennium Falcon to the rebel base on Yavin and fights off numerous soldiers, to reach the rebel leader of General Dodonna, killing him. The Death Star arrives and fires on the planet, but an earlier act of sabotage by Han and Luke causes a malfunction. The laser bolt tears through Yavin, but the planet remains intact. Starkiller fights his way to his shuttle and escapes before the planet is destroyed. On board the Death Star, Starkiller executes Grand Moff Tarkin for trying to kill him. Months later Starkiller has tracked Luke Skywalker to Hoth, leading an assault on the rebel base. He manages to fight off enemy soldiers and Wampas, engaging in a duel with the novice Skywalker. Starkiller is able to turn Luke to the dark side of the force and together, head for Dagobah to seek out Yoda. On Dagobah, the remains of a hut is discovered, but the mysterious Yoda is nowhere to be seen. Starkiller returns Luke to the Emperor who offers him the chance to replace his father, Anakin Skywalker (and of course Starkiller) as his new apprentice. Starkiller gains a new lead on the whereabouts of Leia and Han Solo, tracking them to the planet Antak, where Yoda has begun to teach Leia in the ways of the Force. Yoda allows them to escape, as he fights off Starkiller who defeats the aged Jedi Master. Palpatine and Luke decide to destroy Alderaan using the newly repaired Death Star, forcing Leia and Han to lead an assault. Starkiller is ambushed by Luke in an attempt to usurp his position, though not killed, he is defeated and dropped into the bowels of the Death Star. Working his way back to the throne room, he kills Han Solo and Chewbacca who are attempting to save Bail Organa. Bail reveals the truth behind Anakin's children, causing a momentary lapse of conscience in Starkiller. Starkiller reaches the throne room to discover that Luke is fighting against his sister Leia in front of the Emperor. Starkiller reveals to Luke, Leia's true identity (that of his long lost twin sister). At this point, the player chooses to either seek revenge on Luke or save the Skywalker twins from Emperor Palpatine: *If the player chooses to fight against Luke, he engages him briefly before Leia gets the drop on both. Luke is impaled by Leia's lightsaber and killed. Then Starkiller defeats Leia, who watches with her dying breath as Alderaan is destroyed by the Death Star and Starkiller stands at the side of his master. Palpatine remarks that he always underestimates the skill of his best weapon: Starkiller. *If the player turns on the Emperor, Palpatine is forced to fight all three of them. Leia is weakest and knocked out of the fight almost immediately. Luke is dispatched of next and Starkiller remains to face Palpatine alone. Starkiller soundly defeats Palpatine, but then Luke (wishing for revenge) attacks the Sith Lord and is killed. Leia, angered, re-joins the fight and with the assistance of Starkiller, defeats Palpatine and kills him. With the Death Star captured, and Alderaan saved; Starkiller, looking to atone, offers his knowledge of Imperial operations to help the Rebel Alliance defeat the Galactic Empire. Cast and characters * Samuel Witwer as Starkiller: The child of two Jedi, Starkiller was the secret apprentice of Darth Vader before he turned on the Dark Lord and killed him. His body was heavily damaged by Palpatine and remade into a cyborg Sith Assassin. Having fallen to the dark side, he now loyally serves the Emperor as an enforcer. * Lloyd Floyd as Luke Skywalker: The son of Anakin Skywalker, the Infinities version does not get the early training of Obi-Wan Kenobi and thus falls under the sway of the dark side and becomes the pupil of Emperor Palpatine. In both versions of the end, he is killed (either by Leia or Palpatine). * Catherine Taber as Princess Leia Organa: The daughter of Anakin Skywalker, the Infinities Leia learns from her father that she is a Jedi by heritage and gets training from Yoda, rather than Luke. In the end she fights her brother, before being interrupted by Starkiller. Depending on the choice the player makes, Leia either kills Luke and is killed by Starkiller herself or she spares her brother and helps to defeat Palpatine. * John Armstrong as Han Solo: The Infinities Han Solo chooses to remain with the Rebel Alliance, later joining Leia on her journey to become a Jedi. Having secretly fallen in love with Leia, he volunteers to infiltrate the Death Star and is later killed by Starkiller, along with his Wookiee co-pilot Chewbacca. * Rob Rackshaw as Obi-Wan Kenobi: Obi-Wan Kenobi is the third boss fight on the latter half of the Tatooine mission. Instead of dying on the Darth Star in a fight with Darth Vader, he is defeated by Starkiller in Mos Eisley. His inability to provide early training to Luke is the main cause for Luke's fall to the dark side. *'Dee Bradley Baker' as Boba Fett: The galaxy's best bounty hunter. Boba Fett is the second boss fight, appearing in the first half of the Tatooine mission. While Starkiller attempts to escape from Jabba's palace, he is confronted by Boba Fett. Starkiller defeats the bounty hunter by tossing a thermal detonator at him. * Matthew Wolf as Lt. Marsen and Protocol Droid: Lt. Marsen is an original character to the game. An Imperial Officer assigned to Starkiller, he provides intelligence and support during the early levels. * Peter Lavin as Captain Keenah: Capt. Keenah is the Officer in charge of the task force assigned to Starkiller. He is openly defiant to Starkiller and is later killed during the Hoth mission for failing to provide the proper information. * Jimmy Smits as Bail Organa: The Emmy Award-winning Smits again voices the character he played in the Star Wars prequels: a Galactic Senator from Alderaan and Leia Organa's adoptive father. * David W. Collins as PROXY and Jabba The Hutt: Starkiller's former droid sidekick makes a cameo appearance in Jabba's palace, during the Tatooine mission. Collins also provided the voice for Jabba The Hutt during the sequence. In addition to voicing Starkiller, Witwer also provided the voice of Emperor Palpatine. Development Concept Game planning began in summer 2004, when William Walton Granger was instructed to create a new multimedia event similar to Shadows of the Empire. He named it Force Unleashed and opted to use a video game as its focal point. Once the storyline was established, and work on the game proceeded, Granger took an interest in the idea that Starkiller falling to the dark side in the non-canonical ending. Story Nine months before completion of Force Unleashed, Granger suggested a brief DLC package where the evil Starkiller could impact the Star Wars universe. In April 2007, LucasArts suggested an entirely new game as a sequel option, but Granger suggested a second release of the game, a special edition which would have a second, smaller campaign encompassing the entire trilogy. Told to go wild in messing up the continuity, the programmers made sweeping changes including; the Death Star surviving and being captured by the Rebel Alliance, Leia becoming a Jedi and fighting her brother Luke who would turn to the dark side of the Force. Granger permitted all changes, save for a plot point which would have Leia defeat Starkiller and become Palpatine's new apprentice in the same vein of becoming Jabba's slave. Granger though that idea was too overtly sexual and nixed it. Technology The game is based on LucasArts' proprietary "Ronin" game engine but also integrates third-party technology: Havok for rigid body physics, Pixelux Entertainment's "Digital Molecular Matter" (DMM) for dynamically destructible objects, and NaturalMotion's Euphoria for realistic non-player character artificial intelligence. LucasArts' programmers had to overcome technical hurdles to get Havok-, DMM- and Euphoria-coded components to interact. Developers also had to strike a balance between realistic and entertaining physics. LucasArts initially opted not to release a personal computer version of The Force Unleashed, stating that doing the game well would be too processor-intensive for typical PCs and that scaling down the game's procedural physics for the PC platform would "fundamentally" change The Force Unleashed's gameplay. ILM collaboration and Cast Performance The Force Unleashed is intended to make players think they are "actually, finally, in a Star Wars movie". Granger never liked the early games in the Star Wars franchise, due to the limitations of the technology at the time. Thus he had hoped that The Force Unleashed could elevate that. It is the first game on which LucasArts and Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) collaborated since they both relocated to the Letterman Digital Arts Center in San Francisco, California. This collaboration allowed the companies to co-develop tools to make film-quality effects. LucasArts worked with ILM's Zeno tool framework and helped ILM build its Zed game editor. George Lucas would later say having the two companies working together in the same building was "a great collaboration". It took Senior Manager of Voice and Audio Darragh O'Farrell four months to cast The Force Unleashed. ILM's face- and motion-capture "CloneCam" technology recorded actors' voice and physical performances. This led to a change in LucasArts' casting process: for the first time, actors needed to match characters' age and gender. Actors performed their lines together, rather than in isolation, to better get the sense of their characters interacting with each other. Consequently, the script's dialogue was reduced while reliance on characters' expressions— captured through the CloneCam— increased. CloneCam technology had previously been used in producing the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Music LucasArts music supervisor Jesse Harlin said the music matches the game's motif of redemption and goal of bridging the gap between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope: The game's soundtrack includes material composed by John Williams for the films in addition to material created specifically for The Force Unleashed. Jesse Harlin composed the game's main theme, while Mark Griskey composed the score. Griskey made use of several motifs from the film scores as well as Harlin's main theme. The 90-minute soundtrack was recorded by the Skywalker Symphony Orchestra and mixed at Skywalker Sound in Lucas Valley in September and October 2007. During gameplay, a proprietary engine combines "musical elements according to the pace, plot, and environment of the game at any given moment", resulting in a unique musical experience. Content The Ultimate Sith Edition has all the original content; including the first game, as well as the downloadable costumes and character skins. There is also new content, such as the Desert Survival Gear and Starkiller's new Dark Lord's Armor, although the latter two costumes are inaccessible on the main campaign disc for the Xbox 360 version. There are also two Luke Skywalker and two Obi-wan Kenobi costumes available to play as, as well as many others. Packaging The Ultimate Sith Edition came in a metallic case with two discs for the Xbox 360 and PC version and one Blu-ray disc for the PS3 version. In addition to the game itself, each version comes with a book of character cards with a foreword by Haden Blackman and a collectible lithograph of one of the character cards. In the UK The Ultimate Sith Edition comes in a normal Xbox 360 case with two discs inside. Reception 1.2 million unit sales of The Force Unleashed Ultimate Sith Edition across all platforms made it the third best-selling game globally in the third quarter of 2009; as of July 2010, it had sold four million copies. The Force Unleashed Ultimate Sith Edition received mixed to fair reviews. Electronic Gaming Monthly said the game is "ambitious--yet dissatisfying"; however, GameSpot said the game "gets more right than it does wrong". X-Play identified the game's story as one of the game's "few bright spots", but felt that buying the original game was unnecessary and it could have been easily released as a DLC. IGN again praised the game's voice acting, particularly Witwer's performance as Starkiller. GamePro faulted "disappointing" boss battles and the game's "uneven" combat. GameSpot said LucasArts seems to have acknowledged some of the original game's criticisms in developing the expansion, but IGN called the Tatooine level's boss fights "a joke" in light of the player's high Force powers. IGN also found the level design in Hoth scenario uninteresting, and called the boss fight against Luke Skywalker tough but "not nearly as fun" as it could have been. External links * at * * * *